News from Thursday, December 19, 2024
Articles
US Spent $450B on Drugs Last Year, CMS Says, with New Obesity and Diabetes Drugs Adding to Total
(12/18, Nicole DeFeudis, Endpoints News) reports “...National spending on prescription drugs was up 11.4% in 2023, totaling $449.7 billion, including government spending, private health insurance and out-of-pocket costs. That compares to a 7.8% growth rate in 2022, CMS reported on Wednesday...When it comes to the growth in Medicare spending on prescription drugs, the agency also cited provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that limit out-of-pocket costs for vaccines and insulin products, ‘increasing, in turn, Medicare’s financial responsibility.’” Full
Press Releases
Benefit Design Barriers Continue to Undermine “Fair” Access for Patients
(12/19, National Pharmaceutical Council Press Release) “...Despite numerous multi-stakeholder efforts to reform benefit design and establish guardrails that protect patient access, healthcare payers continue to impose inappropriate barriers to care. Today, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review released its fourth annual Fair Access report, which evaluates the alignment of select prescription drug coverage policies with a small subset of ‘Fair Access’ criteria that ICER developed in 2020. Though the report has limitations, it highlights a persistent challenge in the U.S. healthcare system: patients continue to face unnecessary and harmful barriers to care due to poorly designed health benefits.” Full
Institute for Clinical and Economic Review Publishes Fourth Annual Assessment of Barriers to Fair Access Within US Commercial Insurance Prescription Drug Coverage
(12/19, ICER Press Release) “The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review today published its fourth annual ‘Barriers to Fair Access’ assessment of prescription drug coverage policies within US commercial insurance, and the Veterans Health Administration. The analysis found that major payer coverage policies for the 11 drugs in scope often met fair access criteria for several categories, while areas for improvements were identified in the transparency of coverage policy information for consumers and in detailing out-of-pocket costs for patients.” Full
Over 1,000 People with Advanced Breast Cancer Set to Benefit from New Once-a-Day Tablet
(12/19, NICE Press Release) “Our final draft guidance recommends elacestrant (also called KORSERDU and made by Menarini Stemline) for treating oestrogen receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HER2-), locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer with an activating ESR1 mutation.” Full
Public Consultation Launched on Changes to NICE's Highly Specialised Technologies Routing Criteria
(12/19, NICE Press Release) “Our HST programme plays a crucial role in evaluating technologies for extremely rare, severe, and debilitating conditions. It helps encourage research and innovation in areas where gathering robust evidence can be challenging, while ensuring fair access to treatments for very small patient populations.” Full
Journals
Comparative Effectiveness of Various Orbital Decompression Techniques in Treating Thyroid-Associated Ophthalmopathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Wei Guo, et al.
December 18, 2024, BMC Ophthalmology